by Matt Clarke
In October 2019, Arizona settled for $33,000 a pro se federal lawsuit brought by a state prisoner who alleged he was assaulted by an Arizona Department of Corrections (DOC) guard while handcuffed behind his back.
According to court documents, DOC prisoner Shawn Michael Folta was incarcerated at ...
by Scott Grammer
On June 7, 2019, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), the parent organization of Prison Legal News, entered into a settlement agreement in a public records case involving the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The settlement stemmed from a May 2018 complaint filed against the BOP ...
by Ed Lyon
In September 2019, the final signature of an Arapahoe County, Colorado official was affixed to a $2.45 million settlement agreement in a civil rights lawsuit over the death of prisoner Jeffrey Scott Lillis. Lillis was 37 years old when he was booked into the Arapahoe County Detention ...
by Douglas Ankney
According to a report released on July 23, 2019, by fox43.com, a $550,000 settlement was reached in a § 1983 lawsuit brought against York County, its Prison Board, and numerous officials by the family of a woman killed by her ex-boyfriend in 2012.
CherylAnn J. Dowell was ...
by Matt Clarke
In March 2019, Kern County, California agreed to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the parents and estate of a man who committed suicide at the county’s jail. The suit alleged jail staff ignored obvious signs of his mental instability and self-harm behavior at ...
by Ed Lyon
Christina C. Riley was a model prisoner at the Maui Community Correctional Center in Hawaii, and thus was allowed to participate in a work-release program. Parking her car at the jail, she left for work in the mornings and returned afterward to the lock-up. MCCC guard James ...
by Scott Grammer
On April 18, 2016, Rikki Martinez, 39, was a pretrial detainee at the Elmwood Correctional Facility in Santa Clara, California. According to a complaint filed in federal court, on that day deputies alleged that Martinez had kicked another deputy in the face. As a result, he was ...
by Douglas Ankney
In April 2019, the Cook County Board of Commissioners agreed to pay $1.7 million to settle a lawsuit over the death of Devin Lynch, a Marine Corps veteran and active reservist, while he was held at the Cook County Jail.
Lynch, 26, was booked into the facility ...
by Scott Grammer
Jason Nishimoto, 44, committed suicide on August 27, 2015 by hanging himself with a bedsheet after being placed in solitary confinement at the Vista Detention Facility (VDF) in San Diego, California.
Nishimoto had been diagnosed as a “high-functioning paranoid schizophrenic” at age 18, and, according to a ...
by David M. Reutter
The Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) agreed to pay $157,500 to settle a lawsuit alleging it had discriminated against a female prison guard.
Merrianne Weberg, 58, began working for the MDOC in 1992 and was promoted to sergeant in 1995 while at the Western Wayne Correctional ...